Foremski's Take: This looks to me like a possible olive branch to Rupert Murdoch and his threat to take his content out of the Google Index.

The changes in the First Click Free program plug a hole in publisher's paywalls. The program is designed to let the Googlebot index content but others can also get in free.

For example, WSJ.com will only allow non-subscribers to see the first couple of paragraphs for free, but if you type the headline into Google it will take you to an open copy of the article.

Google is trying to protect its index and make sure it is as complete as possible. It would suffer a blow to its brand and its mission to index all the world's information if Mr Murdoch and other newspaper publishers blocked the Google index. Users would wonder what else is missing at Google.

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Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land has an interview with Josh Cohen where he talks about the First Click Free program.